Our View: All hands on deck in Somerset

The bad news about Somerset's finances just keeps getting worse by the week. Now, a bombshell has been dropped that will require a triage and rescue team — and all hands on deck — to stop the town from sinking. At Wednesday night's Board of Selectmen meeting, it was revealed that the town will run out of money to ...

The bad news about Somerset's finances just keeps getting worse by the week. Now, a bombshell has been dropped that will require a triage and rescue team — and all hands on deck — to stop the town from sinking. At Wednesday night's Board of Selectmen meeting, it was revealed that the town will run out of money to pay its bills within six weeks. As Selectman Scott Lebeau said, the town is in "crisis mode."

Due to the apparent inability of the elected town treasurer, Kathleen Trafka, to reconcile cash accounts in time for tax certification from the state Department of Revenue, Somerset will need to borrow $17 million to pay the bills through April 30. But it seems that town officials are unsure of the town's process for borrowing the money needed to stay afloat.

While Trafka believes the town has to spend down the cash in its stabilization fund before it can borrow, Town Counsel Clement Brown said that to borrow to pay bills, the town must report the amount of stabilization receipts, but does not need to spend it down. Officials need to get those answers and get the process moving.

Meanwhile, Town Administrator Dennis Luttrell hoped to get support from the town Advisory and Finance Committee to use close to $100,000 from the reserve fund to hire a fiscal consultant to help reconcile the books and get the town out of its fiscal mess.

There's no question that Trafka dropped the ball and justifiably came under fire from selectmen on Wednesday. After the meeting, Selectmen Chairman Donald Setters had harsh words for Trafka: "This lady is taking our town down. We have to do whatever is necessary to get these books reconciled. It may be too late now."

Trafka, who blames the lack of an assistant treasurer for six months and the lack of clerical help she needed to keep up with the cash reconciliation, suggested closing the treasurer's office some days to focus on balancing the books. At this point, the town should be doing whatever it takes to fix the problem — including seeking assistance from the state — instead of focusing on how it got there.

As Lebeau said, "when a boat is sinking, you handle the things that have to be done. We have enough money to keep the town afloat for the next six weeks." It's time for everyone to do their part to help bail out the town or it is going to sink.

While there's plenty of blame to go around for the leadership deficiencies in Somerset that created this mess, now is not the time to play the blame game. Getting to the bottom of how this mess was created can wait for another day, hopefully after crisis has been averted.

Now is the time to focus on the crucial task at hand: reconciling the books and figuring out what steps must be taken to pay the bills before Somerset's cash runs out. Who is capable of leading that effort?